Nova Scotia College of Art and Design technical and educational resource personnel could walk off the job later this month, after 97 per cent of the union’s membership voted in a strike referendum ballot Dec. 2.

NSCAD faculty union president Jane Milton said negotiations for the 33-member bargaining unit are continuing, but the parties remain far apart on salaries, health and safety issues and the status of recur­rent sessionals who are denied ben­­efits because they are laid off for three months every year.

The unit’s previous contract was a three-year deal that expired June 30, 2007.